This letter from the former Groupon CEO has to be the best departure letter ever. Basically, with humor he owns up to his failure. But this has to be the coolest part:
For those who are concerned about me, please don’t be – I love Groupon, and I’m terribly proud of what we’ve created. I’m OK with having failed at this part of the journey. If Groupon was Battletoads, it would be like I made it all the way to the Terra Tubes without dying on my first ever play through.
A Battletoads reference! Which got me thinking: Why don’t we see more classic video game references in every day life? You can expect people to get references to classic literature and movies, but video game references are thought to be more obscure. But any one should be able to get references to classic video game or you are simply not a cultured person.
Though, I have to admit, I had to Google to remember what the Terra Tubes level was. I never made it to that level on the original NES game; I think the furthest I made it was the level before: Intruder Excluder (I later played through the whole thing with an emulator using save states to help me). Man, Battletoads was a crazy game. It starts out with this deceptively fun first level… and then just pummels you mercilessly after that. It’s like if you were playing Mario 64 and after you got the first star the game turned into Dark Souls. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re not cultured.
Oh, man. I am so screwed.
All your video game references are belong to us!
Then we desperately a ‘Punch A Hippie’ or ‘Smack a Liberal With A Skillet!’ old school video game.
Let me call Dick Cheney in the Halliburton Invisible Dirigible of Doom to get right on that!
Maybe if he’d spent less time playing Battletoads and more time working to improve Groupon…
“Why don’t we see more classic video game references in every day life?”
You know the fruits of your labor? Well, Obama is Ms. Pac Man.
“Government regulations are trucks in the Frogger of life. And, we want you to buy us more trucks.”
Budget decisions are a game of Pong, with the Democrats on the left and Republicans on the right.
— Quaint, but the real world is more like the latest version of Grand Theft Auto.
“The country is like Donkey Kong: run by Democrat asses.”
(Hey! I’m trying here.)
No matter which games you reference, The computer is your friend.